He bit back the demand for her to quit. Samara wouldn’t take orders from him now any more than she had a few days ago. Her independence and take-no-shit attitude were things that drew him to her, but the closer they circled, the more danger she might be in.
If Lydia had essentially kicked her out of the office for a week, it was already too late. She was tainted by her questions, by her proximity to Beckett. He couldn’t let her be hurt. He had to stop his aunt before it got that far.
Beckett took a measured breath. “If you want to talk—really talk—then I’m here. I can’t promise I won’t poke at it a little because it’s a part of you and I want to know every part of you.”
“For God’s sake.” Samara laughed, a little too high to be natural. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Coming on too strong.” He grinned and hooked her around the waist, bringing them chest to chest again. “I hate to break it to you, Samara, but I like you. A lot. If you want to tell me to get lost, I’ll respect that, but if you’re still making up your mind, I’m going to seduce the hell out of you in the meantime.”
Her strong brows came together as she frowned. “I already agreed to go to LA with you. No seduction required.”
“I’m not trying to seduce you out of your pants.” He kissed one corner of her mouth and then the other. I’m trying to seduce you out of your heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Samara wasn’t the least bit surprised when Beckett drove them to a private hangar instead of the main airport later that morning. It stood to reason that, since Lydia had a private jet, the other side of the King family would as well. She marveled silently that this was her life—had been for several years now.
Granted, climbing the steps into the plane with Beckett’s presence behind her was a whole lot different from taking a business trip with Lydia or Journey. He hadn’t touched her since he’d talked of seduction. He’d been absorbed in his phone at her place when she showered and packed an overnight bag, and she was pathetically relieved not to have all of his attention focused solely on her.
She liked it too much.
She liked him too much.
All the careful rules she’d used to guide her life were under one grand umbrella of a rule—do not end up like her mother. She loved her mother beyond all others, but it was no secret that a bright star had been dimmed by the damage Samara’s father did when he left. There were other single mothers who had gone back to school, who had pushed through to realize the dreams they’d always had. Maybe a bit late, but what did time matter in the grand scheme of things?
Not her amma.
Amma seemed content enough with life, but Samara couldn’t help seeing what could have been—what should have been. If Devansh Patel hadn’t professed his undying love and then turned around and dropped her like yesterday’s news. If she hadn’t been pregnant with Samara when he did. If, if, if.
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there.”
“It seems to be the day for it.” She stroked a hand down the smooth leather seats. The inside of the plane could have been a posh interior room in some resort. So much money and for what? So the King families didn’t have to fly with the rest of the rabble.
Samara was the rabble. She couldn’t afford to forget that.
Beckett took her hand, his thumb absently playing along her knuckles. “I don’t think we’re as different as you like to pretend.”
Oh, this should be good. “How do you figure?”
“We’re both walking middle fingers to our fathers, aren’t we?”
She jerked back, but he kept her hand captive. She felt like he’d flayed her first layer of skin away with a few short words, leaving her one exposed nerve in the process. Words crowded against her lips, harsh and petty and guaranteed to slam the distance back between them before he could see how easily he could hurt her. “How?” Was that hoarse, wrecked thing her voice? Do better. She cleared her throat. “How did you know?”
He kept up that soothing touch, granting her the relative privacy of staring out the window as Houston dropped away beneath the plane. “Like recognizes like. I was never cold enough for my father. After my mother died, he didn’t even mourn. He just systematically erased all evidence of her from our lives—from Thistledown—and he never forgave me for not being willing to do the same.” Beckett shook his head. “When I was in college, I had this epiphany. I realized that the whole purge was his grief taking hold, and while I understand that, I didn’t know if I could forgive him. He had a choice after she died. We both did. We just ended up on different paths that never quite met no matter how hard I tried. So I stopped trying.”
“Then what happened?” The words were dragged from her by a curiosity she couldn’t quell. A recognition. She realized she already knew the answer. “You resolved to be better than he’d ever been—and to do it your way instead of his.”
“Yeah.” Beckett chuckled. “Pissed him off like you wouldn’t believe. We became the immovable object and the unstoppable force. It didn’t matter if we both wanted the same future for Morningstar—we wanted it to come about in different ways. It took all of three months of working in the office together to realize we’d bring the company down if we didn’t get some distance from each other, which is why I took over the overseas areas of the business. It worked out better that way.”
“I’m sorry, Beckett.” She’d said it before, and she suspected she’d say it again more than a few times. Samara wasn’t sure if it
